The Pulse of the Middle East
Don't expect peshmerga to beat Islamic State
In recent days, there have been excessively optimistic media assessments that the US air operations against Islamic State (IS) targets
have blunted IS advances and the recovery of the Mosul Dam could well
be the “beginning of the end” for IS. Such optimistic conclusions are
also backed by predictions that the Kurdish peshmerga
and the Iraqi military, backed by US air power, could bring about the
end of IS. How realistic are these over-optimistic opinions? As a
military analyst who knows Iraq well — having served in the field in
Iraq in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2004 and in Afghanistan in 2005 — I don’t
think the US air attacks will produce definitive results. They may
disrupt IS operational capacity temporarily, but will not eliminate it.
Why not? For the answer, one must look at the
order of battle, organization and military tactics of IS, which can be
best described as a semi-military, semi-political body that wants to
translate its day-by-day military gains into a long-lasting political
body. To that end, IS fields generally motorized companies of 80 to 100
men or battalions with 200 to 300 fighters, skilled in urban warfare,
highly mobile and capable of executing terrorist tactics such as
improvised explosive device attacks and hit-and-run attacks, as well as
conventional military tactics at the company and battalion levels. I
don’t agree with the view that IS is a new offspring of al-Qaeda. IS is a
new breed that has caused much confusion to international actors who
can’t decide what to do against IS. We are facing an organization and a
modus operandi we are not at all familiar with.
IS has about 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq. One-third
of these are trained and experienced fighters, with an estimated 1,000
foreigners among them. Former Baath cadres, Sunni tribes and organized
smuggling rings are also active within IS. This gives IS an appearance
of an “umbrella organization” of about 25,000 fighters.
IS is highly skilled in executing the “clear-hold-build”
tactic the United States had implemented as a counterinsurgency method
in Afghanistan and parts of Iraq. It is proficient in quickly adapting
to changing conditions and learning fast. Iraq’s generally flat terrain
and settlements located along a good system of roads offers IS a major
advantage.
I am one of those who believe that IS produces highly disturbing visuals
of beheadings, executions, torture and the like as part of a military
strategy. Its reputation of “barbaric brutality” ensures that all
civilians and military personnel in areas it captures evacuate and thus
offers IS a more sterile and easier-to-rule population.
In fact, IS is applying in Syria and Iraq exactly what it learned from the famous US FM-34 counterinsurgency manual.
In places it captures, it first rattles the authority of the Baghdad
central government and then wipes it out, replacing it with mini
“city-statelets” that will govern the towns and cities. Finally, these
statelets are linked in a network.
In our strategic analysis, we tend to take the Iraqi state
as the subject of analysis, while IS bases its analysis on towns and
cities, thus acquiring a massive strategic advantage.
The military profile of IS is best defined as lightly
armored, highly mobile infantry units well trained in urban warfare. It
has a fluid, versatile command structure that keeps changing. All its
units are mobile and dispersed. IS doesn’t have permanent military
headquarters, operations centers, warehouses or any other military unit.
This is why we see the US air attacks targeting moving vehicles,
temporary lodgings, but not a fixed military installation. There aren’t
any. IS commanders are allowed considerable leeway in their commands.
Brief mission command notes set out what needs to be done, but leave it
to the initiative of the field commander how to do it with minimal need
for communications that can be monitored.
The mobile, dispersed combat style of IS also tells us that
unless air attacks are backed by a robust ”boots on the ground”
strategy, they will not have much bearing on the end of this war.
Actually, in Iraq today the most pressing security issue is the lack of a
ground force with adequate training, experience and equipment that
could undertake a “sweeping offensive” against IS.
With the fiasco in Mosul, we saw how the Iraqi army with
its manpower and weapons superiority disappointed everyone, above all
the United States. Let alone mount an offensive against IS, the soldiers
couldn’t even defend themselves.
Can the peshmerga mount a sweeping offensive against IS?
The peshmerga, the armed force of the Kurdistan Regional Government,
has a long history. First against the British colonial administration,
then against the Iraqi central government, it carried on years of
guerrilla warfare with the advantages offered by the mountainous terrain
and weather conditions in northern Iraq. The peshmerga’s basic combat
strategy can be summed up as rural guerrilla warfare based on
hit-and-run and exhausting the enemy with long-lasting, low-intensity
warfare. This is why the peshmerga’s fighting units are generally made
up of 15 to 20 fighters who can fight in mountainous terrain.
Despite all the upheavals, displacement, warfare and
destruction in Iraq’s recent history, the peshmerga could not divorce
itself from its social fabric and couldn’t become a regular army instead
of “part-time fighter/farmer” format.
The peshmerga forces cannot divest themselves of tribal
ties, stay away from their families and villages or risk starting a
military operation outside their turf.
As someone who participated in many operations with the
peshmerga between 1999-2004, my observations can be summarized as: Most
of the peshmerga units are made up of aged men who have no training and
experience in urban warfare. It is a paramilitary force of poorly
equipped civilians. There is not a single offensive operation the
peshmerga has won in its history. Its basic goal has always been to stay
on strategic defense and compel the invading forces to withdraw after
engaging them with an exhausting, low-intensity struggle. Can you field
an offense-oriented peshmerga that will have mobility and take the
initiative that will sweep away IS from places it captured? My
experience with the peshmerga says: “Not at the moment.”
Today, the United States doesn’t have a military force of
operational nature in Iraq. An operation similar to the 2007 surge
against IS is therefore not feasible. Moreover, the combat capability of
the Iraqi air force is very limited and the Shiite-heavy Baghdad
government can count on only minimal support from local Sunni elements.
This power vacuum offers IS wide room for maneuver.
Also, US air attacks really don’t do much to change the
field military picture, while they can have the effect of aligning
already marginalized Sunni Arabs closer to IS. Well-versed in propaganda
and perception management, IS can exploit the air attacks as a proof of
Sunni victimization and gain some legitimacy from it.
In sum, the pessimistic trend in Iraq can be reversed only
with a sweeping offensive by ground forces with air support, then
ensuring appropriate representation of the Sunnis in Baghdad and
restoring Iraqi politics. But which military force is to undertake the
sweeping offensive, the clearing of IS from areas it had captured and
holding on to those areas for their rebuilding? At the moment, neither
the peshmerga nor the Iraqi military forces are capable of this. The
United States and other Western powers are not willing to get involved.
Fears for the security and future of Iraq are going to prevail for some
time to come.
Labels: Conflict, Crisis Management, Iraq, ISIS, Islamism
posted by Pieface | 12:44 PM
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